lylelaws,
The English language is confusing with some words that use the exact same spelling to mean singular and plural.

Deer can mean one deer or a herd of deer. We do not use deers. Moose is also both singular and plural. We do not use Meese for more than one moose. Data is used the same way. One set of data (single conclusion) or sets of data that show multiple conclusions.

People also don’t know how to identify propositions, adjectives, adverbs and other parts of grammar either.

One pet peeve of mine is the misuse of sit and set. People sit, things set.

Is English a strange language or what?

I’ve rested my case, which is built on the AP StyleBook which governs the usage for newspapers that shjowed the . If people want to use data as singular in common speech, that is absolutely fine with me and perfectly grammatical in that context.

However, to use a headline that is correct in its context and the rules that govern it to attack public education, journalism, the TNT, teachers, science, or whatever, is ridiculous and shows how low some people will go to push an agenda.

mojjonation,
Yes, parental involvement, i.e. helicopter parents encourage schools to give high grades for little effort.

However, I disagree with you in the area of teacher competence, when teachers are shifted around (or fired) and curriculum decisions. Some curriculums are better for some kids, but schools try to use a single curriculum for all students, which will never work right because that assumes all kids learn in a similar way, which they do not. No matter how adaptive people are, there are limitations to such play book and staff competence.

All the union bashing in the world will not fix the problem with the education sysytem in this country. But some people are far to shallow to understand that and feel that if something is repeated enough times, it will eventually become the gospel. The anonimity of the internet seems to drive this point home. What they fail to realize is that eventually, they will be ignored. Standing up on your soap box and yelling the same thing over and over again with no actual proof of your claim makes you look like a fool. Then again, asking someone to stop spewing their anonymous rhetoric is like asking most little dogs to stop barking. It’s a waste of breath.

Back to the subject at hand. Education is a lot like sports. You aren’t going to get results immediately. If you continue to change the coaching staff or the play book, the players will never get used or adapt to a system. While a lot of the ideas put forth by Washington State seem like WASL X.0, some of it might actually have merit if people would see the bigger picture. I don’t think I am alone when I say I believe things would work better, if there were actually discipline and consequences in school. When kids stopped being held back, and consequences to actions were being swpet under the rug, that is when education took a back seat to keeping parents happy and educational politics took over. Soccer nazis and helicopter parents (I can’t believe the first time I heard this one was a week ago) are to blame. Parents never want their child to fail or experience someone telling them “NO”. These people have brought education down to the level it is at now. You learn more from defeat than you do victory. No Child Left Behind = No Child is Allowed to Excel.

Feel free to correct all my posts. You’ll be a very busy person.